Tips for Small and Medium Businesses to Get The Most Out of Social Media

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Social media presents great opportunities to small and medium-sized businesses – you can be nimble, fun and have plenty of character without having to worry about the layers of approval that larger businesses face when they use social media. I’ve worked on some tips to help you on your way to running great social media channels and thinking about the role it can play in your organization.

  1. Define your objectives – before you start posting with a scattergun approach, sit down and map out what is important to you.  Knowing what results you want will define how you go about using social media. Social media moves swiftly, but that doesn’t mean you should rush into it without a plan!  Do you want to:

– get clicks to your website?
– showcase your work?
– talk to your customers?
– take orders/bookings?
– invite people to your events?

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How to Get More Instagram Followers

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1. Make your prof pic and bio amazing and noticeable

The first thing people see is your Instagram biography and picture when scrolling through Instagram. Make yours pretty to look at and different enough to click on. This can include plenty of emojis and any awesome quotes you want to feature in your bio. Make your name catchy and relevant to your brand as well. You want to catch the attention of the other 400 million accounts out there so have fun with your profile and don’t be afraid to stand out.

Trying different combos of C a P i T a L letters also gets you noticed. Play around and have fun with your bio and pic.

2. Pick 1 theme and don’t post selfies or #kidpics

You want your theme to be exactly what your audience loves to look at and can’t live without. If you sell shoes, post gorgeous shoe pictures, hashtag relevant #shoes, and throw in a few inspiration quotes on top of some of your shoe pics.

You just went to the park with your kid? Save that for your personal Instagram if you want to retain followers on your business’ themed account. This will promote trust and a loyal following of interested people.

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How small business owners can use viral marketing?

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Think that you need huge budgets and resources to create effective viral content for your business? Think again. Going viral is easier than ever, even for small businesses who’ve never had any previous online presence. The most important aspects that you need to get right to go viral is creativity and originality. After that, it’s simply a matter of finding the right social media channels to promote your content through. Here are some tips that small business owners need to follow if they want to succeed in viral marketing:

Don’t be overly ambitious

There is nothing wrong with ambition, but sometimes it can cause more issues than it’s worth. Before you start planning out how your content is going to take over the world and result in record breaking sales for your business, make sure that you reel yourself in slightly and set your sights a little lower. If you’re a small business that only operates locally, then what would be the point in the whole world seeing your content? Not much. You want to make sure that your content is going viral with the right audience – which should be your customers. Anything else is a bonus.

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Top Techniques for Creating A Solid Email Marketing Campaign

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When in the process of setting up a small business and marketing it for more sales, it’s important to look into all avenues of marketing to ensure you don’t miss out on any potential customers. One marketing method that’s used by many small businesses is email marketing. Email marketing is not only a cost effective strategy to use but has the potential to build a stronger relationship with your future customers. So how do you create a powerful email marketing campaign? This expert guide will give you the top techniques you can use to create a solid email marketing campaign.

Best Practices For A Great Email Marketing Strategy

Identify Your Target Audience

Identifying your target audience is the first thing you need to consider when creating a powerful marketing strategy. The idea of audience identification is so you don’t market your business to the wrong people who aren’t interested in what you have to offer. This just wastes your time and theirs. So how do you identify your target audience? The answer is audience segmentation. Audience segmentation is the process of breaking down your potential customer base and working out specific content that is targeted for them. You can start this break down process by placing your audience into selected categories. These categories include:

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Is Online Marketing a Better Match for a Small Business than Offline Marketing?

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The question of whether online marketing trumps offline strategies is often treated as a hypothetical one – most marketers have tossed offline by the wayside and placed 100% of their focus on newer (and more successful) online methods.

But is online marketing always the best match for a small business? Let’s first take a look at how online marketing can benefit your business. I’ll also consider the question of whether offline marketing really is antiquated and not worth doing, or if there’s something left in the tank of old school methods.

Deep Dive Analytics

Online marketing can give you an excellent overview of the performance of each and every dollar you spend. Free inbuilt tools on Google Analytics, for example, allow you to set goals and track the flow of your traffic. You can analyse where your audience is exiting your site, which landing pages perform best – and that’s just the start.

Analytical tools allow you to deep dive on the specifics of your business performance, allowing you to tweak and adapt in real time. You can respond to market shifts quickly by viewing the results of complex calculations with just a few clicks.

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Putting Together an Immaculate Business Website

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To run your business smooth means that you will have to mark your presence online, and offline as well. However, unless you have a good website, people will just quickly click away to look for what they need elsewhere. You should never wait for updating your webpage until it is too late, because by the time you have everything done, your business might have missed out on many opportunities.

Let Customers Praise Your Products and Services

Telling how great your business is, will never be a good practice, because people will want to hear what other peers are thinking. It will be absolutely necessary that you include reviews, and to alter them very little, so that people can read what others really meant. Not only will it be helpful for other people, because it will tell them clearly if they should work with your business or not. But, on the bonus side, if you have good reviews, it will be an invite for everyone to come and check out your business, meaning that you will have more traffic.

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How to keep your Computer and Network Safe

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Keep all software up to date including the operating system

Software isn’t perfect. It’s bad enough that bugs in the code occasionally make a program crash. What’s worse is that cyber criminals are constantly seeking flaws in operating systems and other software, vulnerabilities that will let them steal your passwords, install malware, and otherwise give you grief. For these reasons it is vitally important that you install the recommended updates. Recommended updates can also address non-critical problems and also make your computer and network perform better.

Install antivirus and malware protection

This will protect against viruses and malware that can come from emails, files on disks or downloads from the internet. Make sure to use the very latest version of your antivirus or security suite. The bad guys are always inventing new tricks to try to correct your Computer and network. If you’re using an old security tool you won’t have the new fixes. If you make certain to keep these essential programs up to date, you should stay safe from most known threats.

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5 Digital Success Tips For Small Business

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Our competitive landscape has completely changed. Customers expect more from businesses, on and offline. Technology is transforming the way we search, connect, engage and purchase. New tools, platforms, lower barriers to entry and accessible insights are evening the playing field for small businesses.

Is your mobile and digital technology use currently limiting your digital potential?

Here are five tips to help you become a leader, not a laggard.

1. Get the basics right

•    Stalk your customer – Understand your customers’ buying journey and exceed expectations. Tailor the online experience to complement your other channels and customer interactions.

•    Have a realistic budget – Customer attraction and retention are crucial for small businesses. Have you set aside a budget for marketing? As a guideline 5% of revenues is recommended for existing businesses and approximately 10% for start-ups. ROI (return-on-investment) should always be key when measuring your marketing efforts. Smart investments will ensure you are well positioned to attract consumers now and in the future.

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How Small to Medium Sized Businesses Can Use Video Content Marketing

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For a long time, content marketing has been a key channel in any successful online strategy. Quality, unique content is the best way for companies to increase their social signals, obtain natural inbound links and engage prospective customers en masse.

Recently, more and more brands are turning to video content marketing. And for good reason: it’s estimated that by 2017 video will make up nearly 70% of all consumer traffic. Currently YouTube receives more than a billion unique visitors every month. A well-crafted video can say a lot about your brand in a short space of time. This makes it an effective way to get your brand’s messages out quickly to many people.

We often hear about successful video marketing campaigns from global companies with huge advertising budgets. But how can small and medium sized businesses with more conservative budgets leverage the power of video content? We look at a few simple ways companies can increase the reach and impact of their campaigns.

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